Fortress May Bid $4.7 Billion for NY Apartment Complex

Fortress Investment Group LLC is seeking financing for a bid to buy Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, the Manhattan apartment complex whose future has been in limbo since its owners defaulted on a $3 billion mortgage four years ago, according to a person familiar with the plans.

The New York-based private-equity firm is considering an offer valued at about $4.7 billion, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. A deal would involve bringing in equity partners to contribute cash, the person said.

Stuyvesant Town, an 80-acre (32-hectare) property that’s Manhattan’s biggest rental community, is currently under the control of CWCapital Asset Management LLC, which is owned by Fortress. CWCapital is in charge of negotiating with potential buyers on behalf of bondholders after owners Tishman Speyer Properties LP and BlackRock Inc. walked away from their investment in January 2010, one of the highest-profile real estate deals to collapse in the property-market crash.

Gordon Runte, a Fortress spokesman, declined to comment, as did Brian Moriarty, a CW spokesman.

Tishman Speyer and BlackRock purchased the 11,000-unit complex for $5.4 billion in 2006, a record for a New York commercial property at the time. The $3 billion loan that financed the transaction was carved up and bundled into commercial-mortgage bonds that also contained debt tied to offices, hotels and shopping centers.

Rent Plan

Tishman Speyer, which based its acquisition on plans to raise the cost of rent-regulated units to market rates and evict illegal occupants, defaulted after litigation blocked that effort and the apartment market crumbled following the global financial crisis. The deal came to epitomize the lax lending based on unrealistic projections of future income that fueled the real estate bubble.

Stuyvesant Town was appraised at $3.4 billion in September, according to Barclays Plc, up from about $2.8 billion when CWCapital took it over. Barclays estimated in a May 2 report that the property could fetch $4 billion to $4.3 billion in a sale, which would result in zero losses to bondholders.

Fortress Investment Group LLC is seeking financing for a bid to buy Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, the Manhattan apartment complex whose future has been in limbo since its owners defaulted on a $3 billion mortgage four years ago, a person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg.